Who's Sorry Now?

by Jill Churchill

  She'd thrown a coat over her nightgown and parked her car a few feet away from the shop. She was shivering even though the night was warm.

  “You need to rest, too," Walker said. "I'll have the can examined by an expert in fingerprints and someone who's an expert in arson by morning. Are you sure the shade over the door isn't still smoldering?" he asked, looking up.

  “Dear God!" she exclaimed, looking up as well. "There is a wisp of smoke coming off the top.”

  Howard ran inside, asking Mr. Kurtz where he'd left the pitcher.

  “In the bathroom upstairs," Mr. Kurtz said in a shaky voice.

  Walker found and filled the pitcher and called down, "Mrs. Smithson, stand away from the building.”

  When he could see her out in the street, he poured three pitchers full of water on the shade. Meanwhile the volunteer firemen and Robert Brewster appeared. "Don't touch anything," Walker shouted from the upstairs window.

  Lights were going on in houses on the next block. People were coming out to gawk. A moment before Robert showed up, Ron Parker had come running at the sound of the fire truck. He'd thrown a coat over his pajamas and was still wearing house slippers.

  “I'm glad to see you, Deputy Parker," Walker said. "Help me to keep everyone away from this trash can. Someone leaned it against the front door and set it on fire. It's evidence of a crime. No, Robert! Don't touch the trash can!" Walker added.

  Parker said, "Give me five minutes to put my uniform on, would you, Chief?"

  “I'll watch it until you're back. I need to question Mr. Kurtz as soon as I can," Walker replied.

  “Is there anything you want us to do?" John Butler asked Walker. He was already rolling the hose back up on the ancient fire truck.

  “Go home and catch up on the missed sleep," Howard said.

  As the firemen left, Robert asked, "Want any help? I came around the corner and saw you upstairs at that window pouring water over the canvas shade. Want me to make sure it's safe now?"

  “I'd appreciate that and so would Mr. Kurtz and his granddaughter.”

  When Parker returned, dressed in his old uniform, Walker said, "I have two people to call in the morning as soon as I can. You're going to have to sit out here all night, I'm sorry to say, to make sure nobody touches the waste bin."

  “I'll stick around for a little while to keep you company, Deputy," Robert offered. "May I go inside and try to find a chair for the deputy to sit in?" he asked Mrs. Smithson.

  “I think there is one in the basement," she said. "Now I'm going home. I feel silly standing around in my nightgown, even with a coat over it. I'll just make sure my grandfather is sleeping before I leave.”

  Robert, meanwhile, went to the dark basement, felt around the door for a light switch, and found the chair in question. It was a rocking chair with a pad tied to the seat and the back. He wrestled it up the stairs and out the front door.

  “Here's something you can sit on, Deputy. The cushions, I'm afraid, stink of mildew.”

  Parker said, "I don't need cushions anyway. I might be too comfortable and fall asleep. Thanks for dragging it up here.”

  He settled in, sitting forward alertly. Robert leaned against the windowsill and said, "You might not remember me, but we've met before."

  “I recognized you when the chief called you Robert. You're the one who hauled out the typewriter."

  “I am. But credit goes to my sister for getting it as far as the front porch. Could I bring you a book to read, or a pot of coffee and a cup?"

  “Too dark to read," Parker said. "But coffee would be good.”

  Robert took off in the Duesie and headed up the long winding road. He looked in the kitchen for a recipe book that would tell him how to make coffee, eventually figuring out that Mrs. Prinney didn't need recipes. She had all of hers in her head.

  He made the best of a bad situation. The old stove was still barely warm enough to heat a pan of water. He put another piece of kindling into the stove. While it was warming up, he rummaged in the pantry to find the coffee. There should be directions on the package. There were none, so he guessed and put a half a cup of grounds in the tepid water.

  As he pulled the pan of water and ground coffee off the stove, he realized he had to strain it somehow. He looked in all the upper cabinets, then the lower ones, where he eventually found a strainer. The holes were fairly big, so he used a dishcloth in the bottom, thinking how very clever he was.

  He found a clean milk bottle waiting outside to be replaced, presumably by a milkman at some point in the future. He washed the bottle, carefully poured the coffee into it, wrapped it in a whole wad of dishcloths, and took it to the car.

  He was about to start the Duesie when he realized he hadn't thought to put the cap on the bottle. What if it tipped over and spoiled the leather seat? He contemplated holding it between his knees, but he wouldn't be able to use the brake, gas, and clutch if his knees were together. Finally he settled for grabbing an old jacket from the back-seat and tying the sleeves around himself and the bottle. It was uncomfortably warm, even in spite of the dishcloths padding it.

  As he pulled up in front of Mr. Kurtz's shop, he saw that Mrs. Smithson was back, wearing a pair of trim trousers and a short-sleeved blouse. She was handing a thermos to Deputy Parker.

  Robert hopped out after untying his jacket and himself from the now tepid bottle and said, "I brought coffee."

  “I thought you didn't know how to make coffee? That's what you said before," she said. She took the bottle from him, sipped at it, and choked. "Oh dear! This would keep any normal person wide awake for a week. Not to mention how gritty it is. You come over to my house tomorrow afternoon and I'll teach you how to do it right and where to buy a thermos.”

  Robert thanked her in a thin, cold voice and added, "I'll do that.”

  A block away, he dumped the coffee out of the milk bottle at the side of the road and went home to bed.

  When Howard Walker returned the next morning with his consultants, Chief Coiling from Newburg, and a fire marshal he'd brought along, Deputy Parker was slumping in the rocking chair, holding one eyelid open with his finger.

  “Go home, Ron. You look half-dead," Chief Walker said. "Get some sleep. I can handle this myself today unless something else turns up.”

  Parker tried to rise from the rocker and nearly toppled over. Walker caught his arm. "It's not far. Can you walk?"

  “Barely," Parker said bravely, stretching out one leg and then the other and setting out for his new lodgings over the greengrocer's shop. He didn't look as if he'd make it the two blocks without falling down Walker said to the other two men, "It's his first day on the job and I left him to guard the can overnight." Both men laughed.

  Chief Coiling asked, "How did you get rid of the dumb lump of a deputy you used to have?"

  “I didn't. He got a girl from Albany pregnant and had to marry her and live with her family."

  “Happy Families," the fire marshal said with a wink. "Now let's look at this trash bin." He put on a pair of fresh white cotton gloves and held the sides toward the bottom and turned it upright. "Probably no fingerprints in this area," he added as he leaned carefully into the bin and took a deep breath, then stood up. "No fire starter accelerator. No gasoline or kerosene smell. But plenty of dry wood. It looks like slats from cartons of some sort. Most people would keep it for kindling. Unless they already had too much kindling.”

  Deputy Parker staggered in the door of the greengrocer's shop.

  “What's wrong with you, boy?" Mr. Bradley asked. "You look like a wrung-out rag."

  “I was babysitting a trash can overnight," Parker said. "That's probably mine," Bradley said. "I went out early this morning and it was gone."

  “Do you mind calling Chief Walker and telling him that? He'd like to know.”

  But when Bradley called, Walker already knew. He said, "We found an invoice for a crate full of apples in the can. I'm sorry I can't return it yet. I have to hold it for a day or two to have it
fingerprinted. It's a bit charred."

  “Charred?"

  “Someone set fire to the packing slats in the trash bin and then leaned the bin against the front door of the new tailor's shop."

  “That's awful!"

  “More than awful. It's arson and attempted murder," Howard said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ROBERT WAS GOING AROUND TOWN with his much-revised petition to build a mail sorting center at the train station. So far he had twenty signatures. He was approaching Chief Walker next and found him in his office in town, with his feet crossed on the desk and his chair tilted back.

  “You're going to kill yourself someday sitting that way. The back feet will slip and you'll crack your head on the windowsill."

  “Maybe so," Howard agreed. "But this is my deep-thinking position, and I have some serious thinking to do right now."

  “About the fire last night at the tailor's shop?"

  “I've been thinking that it was a man who did both the swastika and the fire. He's an avid hater of Germany. But my new deputy suggested that it might be a nasty old woman. That had never crossed my mind."

  “Could an old woman have carried that trash can from the back of Mr. Bradley's grocery shop?" Robert asked.

  “The crate slats weren't that heavy, and they were all dry because we've had so little rain. And the can wasn't completely full. A strong woman of any age could have carried it by the handles."

  “No word yet on fingerprints?"

  “Some. I called the expert who got the painted fingerprint and asked if it was necessarily a man's. He said he couldn't tell. It wasn't a small woman's but some men also have smallish hands. He hasn't had time yet to check the trash bin though. But if that same fingerprint is on it, we still don't know the sex of the person."

  “Nor do we know if it's somebody local, I'd guess," Robert said.

  “I've been thinking about that, too. It's likely, I'm sorry to say, it's someone who lives here and knows their way around. But there are also frequently people who turn up in Voorburg thinking they might find jobs. Those who don't have a car or train fare, and probably camp out in the woods in good weather like this."

  “What about that old enemy of McBride's that you interviewed in Yonkers?"

  “Nope. His fingerprints didn't match. And it's a whole different crime. But I can't imagine what a German hater would have against a man named McBride," Walker went on.

  “Are you absolutely certain of this?"

  “I'm not absolutely certain about anything at this stage," Walker said, suddenly angry. "I've never been so completely ignorant of any crime before. I usually have a few obvious suspects. Even when none of them are actually guilty. But questioning people almost always leads to other suspects, one of whom is usually guilty. This time there's almost nobody to question. Not even one witness has seen the person threatening Mr. Kurtz. No one saw anyone who had reason to murder McBride. Two cases on my plate. Both distasteful."

  “I haven't any advice for you, but one of those old women who was raking through everybody's mail that day I was there could have lifted a small car off its wheels. She had arms like ham hocks and pudgy fingers. Deputy Parker might be right—that a woman could have hoisted that trash can with one hand."

  “But painting the swastika on the window first?"

  “She—if it's really a woman—is as likely as a man to hate and fear Germans these days. She probably has no reason to believe he was born in America."

  “I'll keep that in mind," Howard said. He sounded halfhearted to Robert. But Howard had been asking for an opinion and Robert had given him one that was possible. Maybe not likely though.

  “How's the petition going?" Howard was obviously changing the subject.

  “Pretty well. I have twenty people who signed it just today. I'm seeing more of the townspeople tomorrow and the next day, then going out in the countryside to convince the farmers.”

  Robert thought about Howard as he went around town collecting signatures on his petition. At least Robert had a plan. It wasn't as exciting as murder and attempted murder, but he still believed it was important to have a place to sort the mail so the snoops couldn't know what other citizens were receiving.

  He went to see Mrs. Smithson for his coffee lesson and took the petition with him. It turned out that making coffee wasn't all that complicated after all. It was just measuring water and coffee in the right proportions.

  “Would you like to sign the petition to set up a little post office sorting room at the train station? Read the introduction and then I'll tell you why I think it's important.”

  When she'd finished reading, Robert told her about the old ladies examining other people's mail and deciding who should get certain letters and which they should destroy.

  “I've seen them doing that," she said. "I think it's disgraceful. How will it be set up?”

  Robert explained about the numbered boxes people could pay for and put their own lock on, if they wanted to. He also told her about the little room behind it with the box numbers and an open space.

  “So who is going to do this?" she asked, sipping the coffee Robert had made himself.

  “Well, right now I'll be stuck with it. I was trying to get Edwin McBride a paying job. Of course that won't happen now."

  “It's so sad about his death. He was a nice man. Always polite and helpful. Does the chief of police have any suspects?"

  “I have no idea," Robert lied. He didn't want anyone else to know how upset Howard was about having no good leads in either of the current crimes.

  Jack Summer approached Mrs. Smithson, asking, "May I ask your grandfather for an interview yet? We have two new residents of Voorburg. Your father and a new deputy. People here need to know about both of them."

  “Of course. But I'd like to be at the interview with my grandfather.”

  They both went over to Mr. Kurtz's shop. He was busy taking in some of his own granddaughter's dresses. "I'm paying for these," Mrs. Smithson told Jack. "I've lost a lot of weight recently. The trip to Germany took it off. Grandpa, this is Jack Summer, the editor of the local paper. He'd like to ask you about your new business and a bit about your background."

  “I'd be glad to converse with him. It will perhaps bring in more business."

  “I understand you left Germany to come to Voorburg. How did that come about?"

  “I was afraid of living in Germany. I'd once had the misfortune to attend a Communist meeting where we had to sign in with our names and addresses. The Nazis hate the Communists as much as they hate the Jews."

  “Mr. Brewster told me you got out of Germany just in time."

  “Yes. My granddaughter and I didn't realize it until we got here. The German police were about to refuse to let Americans leave the country."

  “Are you an American, too?" Jack asked.

  “I was born and raised in St. Louis." Mr. Kurtz went on to explain about his father being a brewer who took his family to Germany.

  “Is anyone else in your family still there?" Jack asked.

  “No, my parents died a long time ago. My only sister, much younger than I, came back to America ten years ago and lives in Arizona. I hope she'll come to visit us soon."

  “Why did you take up tailoring instead of being a brewer like your father?"

  “I didn't really like being a brewer, so I apprenticed myself to a tailor when I was a young man in Germany. He taught me well. He had many customers as the economy faltered and I gained a lot of experience. I put away everything I earned working for him, and when my apprenticeship was done I acquired the best tools I could fInd. I must admit that Germany makes the best tailoring tools in the world. I knew I'd want to eventually return home and wanted to have the best shears and needles."

  “Is your business going well so far?"

  “I suppose you could say so. I've been here a short time and have had four customers already. Including my granddaughter," he said, smiling at Mrs. Smithson. "She's a good girl to come and save me
from the Nazis.”

  Jack asked, "Is there anything else you'd like our citizens to know?"

  “Just make sure they know I was born in this country. I'm a full American and love this country.”

  When Jack had put his notebook back in his pocket, he thanked both of them and departed. Mrs. Smithson said, "Grandpa, you said exactly the right things. I'm so proud of you."

  “And I'm proud—and grateful to you, sweeting.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JACK SUMMER'S next visit was to Howard Walker's office. "Chief, do you know anything more on McBride's death that I can report in the Voorburg Times?"

  “Nothing I can report about yet."

  “Anything about the person harassing Mr. Kurtz? I just interviewed him. He's a nice old guy."

  “Nothing to report yet," Walker repeated. "Any other questions?"

  “Two more questions. First, I'd like to talk to your new deputy. It's not often we get two new reputable people living in Voorburg."

  “If you don't mind, he had a long night guarding that trash can. I sent him home to sleep. How about tomorrow?"

  “All right. He'll be in the next week's first issue instead of this week's last."

  “What's the other question?" Walker asked.

  “Do you know anyone who has a car they'd like to sell me?"

  “What's wrong with the motorcycle with the side car?"

  “Well—" Jack looked a bit embarrassed. "It's this—" Jack was actually blushing. "Mrs. Towerton invites me to dinner about every two weeks."

  “That's nice. Does it include anything more than dinner?" Howard asked with a smile.

  “Not yet. Her children eat with us, and then she puts them to bed, and we sit out on the front porch in good weather and drink lemonade. Winters, we sit in the kitchen and drink hot chocolate. But I'd like to pay her back. A really good dinner at a good restaurant. She could get a neighbor to take the children for an evening. But I couldn't possibly take her in the sidecar of the cycle. It would blow her hair and clothing to smithereens. I need a car. Know anybody who'd like the motorcycle? Maybe in kind for a car?"